Reviews Coming Soon

Saturday, February 27, 2016

With Sweden’s big, bad rockers now happily settled in at label giants Century Media, this new album of theirs is going to have to break the mould to impress. Can they create the kingmaker?

Things are sounding good. What we have here is as solid a series of
grooves and as powerful a hit as we’ve come to expect from the Bombus
boys. First of the bat, three cheers for the butch, meaty mastering job
that Jens Bogren has managed to bring to the table after the raw, live
feel of 2013’s The Poet And The Parrot. Layered deep to create a
moving tsunami of sound this welds together the raw, gritty power of
Motorhead with the driven riffing and voluble delivery of Stone Gods
(yep, bonus points for those that remember The Darkness’ Dan Hawkins and
his impossibly powerful, yet woefully short-lived, side project).

From Ola Henriksson’s first vast bass strike and warming buzz that
disseminates slowly only to reveal a bona fide sonic riot, you know all
is going to be well. “Eyes On The Price” positively glows with massive
choruses, repeating dual vocal (think Richie Edwards in one ear and
Lemmy in the other) and an absolute avalanche of electric guitars and
rumbling bass. Rarely straying from this righteous path, we hot-foot it
through the pile-driving “Rust”, rock-tastic “Horde Of Flies” and the
smash-and-grab 3-minute title-track. There’s a pattern emerging, right?
But hold on right there, Slick. Rewind a sec and dig a little deeper.

Third track in and “Deadweight” is where the pace slows and the album
starts to splinter. Still rocking with the best of them, they now load
up on metallic bite and sport a dark brooding visage. Behind, you’ll
find a world of vitriol and sinister minor chords that weave whole new
paths. Bombus have evolved!

Shifting mindsets then, we hit the gamechanger “I Call You Over
(Hairy Teeth, Part 2)”. Those curious souls amogst you will find the
rumbling, bass-loaded “[Pt. 1]” lurking within the confines of their
debut album. “Part 2” has opening piano and post-rock drift harmonics in
the verses (Between The Buried And Me fans, pay attention!) Those
features pitch up oddly against the warm, almost gang-chanted chorus.
It’s definitely a work in progress, but this proves they have the balls
to go out on a limb and experiment.

As the album reaches it’s conclusion they take this new concept to a
breath-takingly dark conclusion. The slow-melt chiming strings and
visceral edge of “Shake Them For What They’re Worth” rings every last
ounce out of the addictive lyrical hook they centre the track around.
Reeling, we stagger into the power-hungry crush of “You The Man” and the
swaggering, hooded menace of show-stopper “Get Your Cuts”. Two tracks
that seal the deal.

I’ve always wondered where the line between rock and metal lies. Now, having heard Repeat Until Death,
I know exactly its location and its name. It’s right here in the middle
of this album. Brave, boundless and furiously catchy, Bombus have
ticked every box and it will make them masters of their own destiny.
Well played, boys, well played.

Monday, February 15, 2016

Direct from the recording studio of a remote mountainside cabin,
hand-built by the band, perched above the fake glamour of Dollywood,
here comes an utterly bewitching album of luxuriantly rich sounds. It
draws its inspiration from across the dusty plains, glutinous swamps and
rolling hills of arcane America and knits together the softer edges of
desert rock and folk blues with transient tonal nods to country, pop,
psyche and stoner.

The first thing though that hits you about this album however is the
unbelievable restraint shown throughout to not swamp the songs with
lyrics, instrumentation or verbose affectations. Remarkable, especially
when you consider the quality of the musicianship on show and the
melodious quality of the vocalist – one Charles Parks. No, here things
are stripped back to allow for the essential to shine and the
unnecessary to melt away.

Stepping through the doorway and into that initial mellow riff of
“Call Me Star”, you are whisked immediately away into All Them Witches’
universe. The tension, the stress melts away and you begin to float. It
works as a real statement of intent, forewarning us to expect the
unexpected; there are to be no fireworks, no clap of thunder, no
desperate need to blast out your ears before they settle. Hewn back to
its humble core, it oozes star quality. Sat atop its mellifluous
acoustic guitar, the band displays an exquisite touch, gifting the song a
lightness and an almost magical quality. Both beguiling and
jaw-droppingly beautiful.

The instrumental eight-and-a-half-minute “El Centro” picks the pace
up, drowning the listener in a Torche-like melting pot of battering
stoner chugs and shifting psychedelic affectations that centres round a
two-note riff. Within two tracks they have blown any preconceptions you
might have of the band not once but twice. And for the kicker? How about
a spot of “Dirt Preachers”? A driving rhythmic build with a grim vocal
performance injected with malice and menace and a storming chorus. The
viciously slow final section drags up sinister undertones of religious
paedophilia by littering the lyrical wordplay with lines like “Come all
you children to my arms” and “Twist your fingers, I’ll call you a star”.

Betwixt and between, there is a bluesy lush jam, a half-whispered
vocal, a dash of harmonica and a gorgeous acoustic instrumental to
wallow in. Venturing down “Open Passageways ” and its pursuing tonal
reprise finds ATW managing to morph the goodness of Coldplay’s early
naivety with Moby’s “Extreme Ways”. It’s a monster track of acoustic
guitar with bowed violin gifting it a folky hue with a sumptuous kick of
vocal hook – “Scream and shout and bellow / Chew up your love then
swallow”.

Then, as the album draws to a close, the band continues to loosen
their belts, resulting in a maddening dropping away of exploratory
content. What it does allow them to do, eventually with Monster Magnet
hats firmly in place, is jam; to gradually step backwards from the lead
to walk beside the listener offering simple chanted echoing incantations
and a degree of psychedelic warbling.

The “solitude of the mountain”, as Parks describes it, has indelibly
coloured the album, removing it from their harder, faster back catalogue
and gifting it a laconic, unforced swagger and a beautifully controlled
flow where everything fits with everything else. Having initially been
released in late 2015, essentially what you’ve got here is the record
everybody missed from their album of the year lists. From here there are
no limits.

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Dutch goliaths Textures are rapidly building quite a reputation for quality songwriting. Following the instant success of debut album Polars
they have gone on to build quite the back catalogue. All that
culminated in their finest work-to-date, 2011’s polyrhythmic
genre-morphing Dualism. For their latest trick they are planning a conceptual diptych, album one being Phenotype and album two being Genotype with both surrounding the subject of genetics.

Let me just put on my Professor mortar board… Now, the “genotype”
concerns each organism’s core genetic structure, whilst the “phenotype”
concerns the morphology and development of the organism’s traits.
Essentially the two albums are a study of nature versus nurture. The
intention is for the musical structures on Phenotype to reappear within Genotype,
only adapted to display the music’s origins – an attempt to mimic an
aural version of genotype-phenotype mapping. Yes, it seems odd to
release them that way around then (the “after” picture before the
“before” picture), but there you go.

Heavier than Dualism, this sports a strong muscular base
that draws on pistoning drums, spasming drop-chord structures and a
thick, brutish death vocal roar. Echoing the immense wall of power
generated by bands like Periphery and Monuments, the whole construct
hammers its way into your ears, the driving rhythm rolls around in your
skull and once complete emerges with a slowly dissolving echo.

Opener “Oceans Collide” grips like a vice as it builds and builds to
an unbearable crush before abating like some of Uneven Structure’s more
noisome compositions. Similarly, “Shaping A Single Grain Of Sand” bucks
and brays like a mule, jerking from action to inaction, from clean to
roared vocal. The closing Meshuggah-styled breakdown even leaps out of
hold before it has had the chance to settle but gives vocalist Daniel De
Jongh a chance to give it absolutely everything. Which brings us to
“The Fourth Prime”. It concerns “the downfall of man” through
imperfections within those in control. It is riddled with brutish chugs
and zinging fingerwork and proves the switch of guitarist Joe Tal for
Jochem Jacobs will ultimately be a smooth transition. Halfway through,
the rumbling drop in pace reveals a vast, echoing cave of wonders which
ends up being the perfect place from which to launch a renewed aural
assault.

There are spots in some songs where the music begins to feel a little
overwrought – “Erosion” and “The Fourth Prime” being good examples. At
these moments proceedings become swamped by the multi-part construction;
the sheer desire of the band to fill every available space with an army
of intertwining riffs, leads and rhythms. It proves they are one
talented unit of players but sometimes less is more and here there is a
tendency for the natural flow to become stifled.

In a poppier, more melodious moment, “New Horizons” proves to be
catchier and a heck of a lot more colourful. As vibrant as a halogen
bulb, it glows like a deconstructed Killswitch Engage track. The subject
matter is all about self-improvement and rising above any perceived
limitation. Further relief from the thunder, can be found in “Zman” and
closer “Timeless”. The former is a gentile little number that sports a
sweetly-echoing, cyclical piano played by Uri Dijk. The latter provides
the glorious wash of clean vocals that we were waiting for. It takes the
joy of 2011’s “Reaching Home” and turns it into a mournful, emotional
ride that describes the curse of a faulty genetic blueprint. It tugs at
heartstrings, playing on our own perceived fears and failings with De
Jongh driving home the impacting lyric “I heard you crawling, carrying
your burden down the yearning hill”.

When all is said and done it’s not a faultless album. There are
oddities that initially catch you out, like the drumtrack “Meander”, but
even here there is much to draw strength from – it certainly serves as a
gentle reminder to Stef Brooks’ incredible percussive work that goes on
behind each track. The last album was a grower, and this will
inevitably also take longer to fully ingest and appreciate the full
impact of Textures’ constructions. No doubt, when all is said and done
we have the portent of Genotype to follow and that promises to fulfil so much of Phenotype‘s true potential.

Founded in 2009, this gritty German collective seem most adept at
summoning up swathes of death-doom all weighed down with a depressive
post and black metal gloom that lingers long after the last note has
sounded out. Now on their third album, their former sludgier efforts
being Pulsar and Earthtone, they’ve called in V. Santura (Dark Fortress, Tryptikon) and this time they’re really gunning to leave their mark.

Well they certainly manage to injure with second track “Stargazin'”
hammering home the emotional turmoil that surrounded the events of the
doomed space shuttle Challenger. It plays out as a series of
sound effects and news and interview clips over a strong memorable riff
and thumping chords that roll around, echo and splinter. Such simple
construction opens old wounds far quicker than any set of lyrics ever
could.

Further in, the album’s stuttering portfolio fails to really menace
as it should with the tracks staying rooted in one place. Depressive
black tones bleed into long sequences of occult psyche and death and
such tracks as “Clouds” and the lyrical curiosities “Skies Of No Return”
and “So Dark The Con Of Man” provide little more than music to curl up
to. The latter track implies that either somebody has been paying
attention to the works of American author Dan Brown or those by
Norwegian hip-hop duo Madcon and most certainly it seems to imply the
infestation of religious thought. As an aside, the idea to base the con
around the concept is interesting as they also use Carl Sagan’s famous
quote about the earth being a single organism and “an organism at war
with itself is doomed”.

Elsewhere, there is their usual solid fare of steady punishing
death-doom. Powering up on overdrive they load their bases with sombre
riffs, occasional spasms of double-kick and a death-rattle vocal.
Suddenly, something loud and obnoxious and not overwrought. “Arrivers”
proves to be another gem and offers an oblique shift in purpose –
suddenly the sonic blitzkrieg of chugs and intrusive grunt finally gives
the listener something to sink their teeth into.

Violent, abortive and, at times, bordering on
grotesque Absent/Minded manage to graft together a raft of genres
without ever truly nailing their colours to the mast. The times they
actually hold the attention come all too briefly and in short sharp
shocks of content. The potential in their thematic choices and the
simpler, more urgent constructions do prove, however, that they have the
capacity to provide a few shocks. Absent/Minded they may be but they
certainly won’t be forgotten.

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

There’s no doubt that Mars Red Sky write music for
themselves alone. What other reason would they have for gathering all
their eggs into one basket time after time. Each new track seems to come
pre-loaded with the same familial qualities – that familial,
otherworldly, psychedelic backline, overdriven buzzing bottom end,
laconic multi-tracked vocal delivery and crunchy riffwork. However, here
on Apex III, they have wrapped it all around a truly alien
theme that dines out on a creepy, pervading sense of drama and a
thoroughly dark tone.

There’s real tonal value in the amalgamated scene-setting
introduction “(alien grounds)” and dark backstory of the title-track
but, sitting proudly up top and riding on a single repeating riff that
incessantly bores its way into your skull as it does, might irk a few
into tuning out right there. I do urge you to persevere past that
initial anomaly, however, because the Floydian wash and Hawkwind-esque
crush soon envelops as tracks like “The Whinery”, “Mindreader” and
“Prodigal Son” will undoubtedly attest to.

“Under The Hood” is the star track with a lush, bluesy underscore
that gently sways around the ultra-light vocal arpeggios. There’s a
sweet lyrical hook in there that draws you up and out of the misty
surrounds – “those emerald eyes of yours” have a lot to answer for. On
the flipside, the summery 60s vibe that characterises “Friendly Fires”
struggles to make any impact and actually seems to work at odds to the
vocal styling. Rather, the multiple-tracking and effects overwhelm and
hide the upbeat melody.

Whereas 2014’s Stranded In Arcadia had a nagging inclination
for analagous tracks, this takes that quality to a whole new level.
Identifying where you are in the sonic wash of colours will require a
tracklist to hand and an ability for deep concentration. But perhaps to
do so would be missing the point. The tracks are, after all, merely
subtle shifts in sound that exist across a single piece of art. Yes,
perhaps less dead air and gentler segues might have assisted this
thought process. It certainly feels like an album that requires a
solitary journey. One of those that will give you a chance to curl up
to, shut your eyes and ride on through the storm.